Buffalo, NY

Using Sound Waves to Clear Lungs

As users exhale into the Lung Flute, sound waves break up mucus in the lungs.

“It’s something everyone’s so conscious of—the need to create employment opportunities here. When you can create a business and create good jobs, there’s a real sense of accomplishment.”

Frank Codella

CEO of Medical Acoustics

Buffalo-based Medical Acoustics distributes the Lung Flute, a
hand-held device that employs sound waves to break up mucus in the
lungs of people suffering from respiratory illnesses, including
emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

The company, located in the Innovation Center on the Buffalo
Niagara Medical Campus, has 12 employees, nine of whom are
full-time. Manufacturing is also local, with Polymer Conversions in
Orchard Park producing the Lung Flute.

UB's support has been instrumental in helping to commercialize
the device, which received national recognition as one of
Popular Science magazine’s top
100 innovations of 2009.

Since its founding in 2002, Medical Acoustics has tapped
university resources including grant funding, help with clinical
trials and assistance drafting a business plan and identifying a
key market.

Today, the Lung Flute is available to hospitals in the U.S.,
Europe and Asia. Codella and his UB partners are proud of their
accomplishments—both in bringing the Lung Flute to patients
and in bringing innovation-based jobs to Buffalo Niagara.

NSF CAREER winner and associate professor of electrical
engineering, Tommaso Melodia, is using ultrasound to create new
wireless sensors that can be used to treat diseases like diabetes
and heart disease in real time.

Led by Shermali Gunawardena, new research into how the
brain functions has revealed some of the potential causes while
opening up potential new routes to future prevention of disorders
like Alzheimers Disease.

The Department of Ophthalmology has once again received an
unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness to continue
its laboratory-based and clinical research exploring vision
processes and disease.

Improving Women's Health

12/3/14

UB is one of four regional centers for the NIH-funded
Women’s Health Initiative, the groundbreaking
investigation into women’s health and healthy aging.